How To: Piano Plays By Itself VFX

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Hello!
In this HOW TO video you can see a pretty cool visual effect with the piano which plays by itself (or rather pretends of doing it). Of course you can also get some useful information and advices how to do it in very easy way and without necessity to have any exceptionally expensive devices.

To do it well you will need:
– a camera,
– a camera stand,
– your piano,
– a thin stick, white thread with transparent scotch tape or any other object to move piano’s keys (in a less visible way possible)*,
– Adobe After Effects installed on your computer.

Steps to do:
1. Filming the piano (with and without moving keys),
2. Register the audio layer of the ambient sounds and music,
3. Post-production:– separating and organizing layers, – masking keys in movement, – synchronization of the keys and sounds,

Before starting it would be great to understand first how does it work? Remember to be prepared well at the beginning – it will help you a lot as during filming as during the post-production. What’s more you will save a lot of time.
The whole secret is the work in editing based on many layers putted together and the masking. In a few words: you will need a background video with the piano (without moving keys) and above you should use another layers but this time with keys in movement. All what you have to do is to mask keys separately and then synchronize their presence and speed movement with the real sounds of the song. If you have not an acoustic piano I mean – if you can’t move the keys from the inside (without touching them) by moving internal parts like strings and hummers, you will need a little visible object (what is written above) to move single keys from the outside. In post-production it will be necessary to play with doubles layers of keys to cover unwanted object which is touching them.
Watch the video and learn to do it by yourself. 😉